A Bold New Future with Green Energy
October 23, 2011 at 8:56 am
Liberals must move its green energy program forward to boost the economy, create jobs and protect the environment.
Ontario’s Liberal Party must not let its new status as a minority government impede its efforts to expand the generation of energy from green sources.
Moving away from the Liberals’ progressive green energy program now will have a long-term detrimental effect on Ontario’s future energy needs and the environment. Ontario’s Green Energy Act is a sensible plan to remove polluting energy sources from our electricity mix and replace them with clean, sustainable energy that is renewable.
“Ontario needs a solid plan to replace what will be lost when its coal plants are closed, and green renewable energy sources have to be a significant part of that plan,” says Tim Bird, national sales manager of the renewable energy division of EfstonScience in Toronto. “We need a more altruistic approach to our province and its energy needs in 15, 20, 25 years. These issues are larger than politics.”
Ontario’s coal-fired plants provided a quarter of Ontario’s electricity in 2003, but that was reduced to 8% by 2010. Because coal is among the province’s greatest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, pollution and smog days, the plan is to eliminate coal-fired power generation from Ontario’s energy mix by 2030.
Maximizing Ontario’s green energy resources will not only replace lost energy capacity when the coal-fired plants are decommissioned, it will also provide an economic boost to Ontario, with projections of 50,000 new jobs created in the sector over the next three years. Further, green energy brings these economic benefits without adverse effects to the environment.
The provincial government’s green energy program also provides revenue-generating opportunities for private homeowners and small businesses through the MicroFIT program. MicroFIT, a feed-in-tariff program, allows homeowners to sell power they generate with a roof-top solar panel back to the hydro grid for 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour, nearly 10 times the rate Ontario consumers pay for electricity. With this kind of revenue-generating capability, a typical system will have paid for itself within seven to 10 years.
“Moving away from the green energy program would cost Ontario vital economic and industrial activity and rob the province of important initiatives to improve the environment,” says Bird. “The future of energy generation is Ontario is going to be from clean, sustainable, renewable resources. The government’s green energy initiatives will keep Ontario ahead of that curve.”
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